In an email to customers yesterday evening the firm explained: "As you are aware, the majority of our Be agents in our call centre are based in India.

"We have just been informed that there is a 24 hour government enforced curfew in Bangalore due to local civil unrest and, as a result, we are unable to handle any calls or tickets from there as of 5.30pm today. Unfortunately this unrest has affected not only our main call centre, but also our back-up sites.

A spokesman for the ISP told El Reg that Be has drafted in a small team of contractors from the UK to provide emergency back-up.

As for Be's outsourced call centre staff in Bangalore, they "will return to work as soon as it's safe to go back", he said. ®